Cocktail Time

A couple of weeks back, K and I had another trip to Edinburgh. We were celebrating 40 years since we first got together. We took the train and checked into our favourite hotel, Tigerlily, where we got upgraded to a beautiful suite – this has happened before, but it’s always a lovely surprise. We had booked a table in the restaurant, but made time for a cocktail before dinner.

Tigerlily has always served great cocktails so trying some is part of the fun of staying there. In fact if I post a photo of a cocktail on Facebook with the question “Where am I?” all my friends immediately guess correctly. In the years we’ve been going there we’ve always enjoyed sitting up at the bar so we can watch the bar staff prepare the drinks. Of course sometimes it’s pure theatre. They don’t indulge in cocktail shaker juggling here, but bending a piece of orange peel next to a lighter flame so the oil sprays out, ignites and flares: that can look pretty spectacular.

For my pre-dinner drink I chose my favourite cocktail – a classic Cosmopolitan. If you’ve never tried one it’s a fruity sweet/sour combination of vodka, triple sec, cranberry and lime – I love it.

After dinner we were back for more. This time I opted for Pixie Dust, a combination of raspberry and rhubarb gin, wild strawberry, lemon juice and egg white. K had a cocktail too.

He’s a whisky man and sampled a Black Sesame Old Fashioned, served over ice, in this case one huge block of it

Next, Lemon Drizzle Flora Dora: a long drink comprising lemon drizzle gin, lime, ginger and raspberry.

My final drink of the night was the Frozen Raspberry Charlie Chaplin, a gorgeous slushy mix of raspberry gin, apricot, raspberry and lemon.

The following evening we found a little Mexican restaurant and I was still in cocktail mood so it had to be a frozen margarita. I got to thinking that I should get the cocktail shaker out at home, Friday night cocktails anyone?

What’s your favourite cocktail?